Robin Robertson: A Journey to Healthy Knees

How does one maintain an active lifestyle while battling osteoarthritis? Robin Robertson, a seasoned advocate for the Arthritis Foundation, shares her inspiring journey from a rare knee condition at birth, numerous surgeries, and an ultimate halt to all impact sports at 24 to leading a vibrant life despite her limitations. It's not simply a tale of resilience and courage but an exploration of alternative forms of exercise that can help maintain a healthy lifestyle while dealing with osteoarthritis.

As a coach and author of the 'Healthy Knees book series, Robin walks us through the nuts and bolts of osteoarthritis care in knees, hips, and feet, extolling the virtues of strength training and cycling. It's a fascinating look into her journey to become a 'Healthy Knees' coach, driven by her own experience with knee issues. Robin's mantra, "rest is rust" serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of movement and proper exercise for joint health.

Hear the story of the fear, the despair, and the monumental shift in lifestyle after a diagnosis of osteoarthritis. But also hear the hope, the resilience, and the adaptability that leads to strength training and a cycling adventure across America. Discover how we’ve refused to let arthritis limit our lives and find inspiration in the pursuit of a path that's right for you. Dive into our conversation about knee health, managing knee pain, and the upcoming Jingle Bell Run. Tune in, listen, learn, and be inspired by the relentless pursuit of life despite the challenges.

Healthy Knees Books: https://www.healthykneescoach.com/Shop   

Healthy Knees for You (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/@healthykneesforyou

Healthy Knees Coach: https://healthykneescoach.com/

Ride Across America Coast to Coast (Travel Journal): https://www.healthykneescoach.com/C2CList

Healthy Knees News email signup (and get the “Save Your Knees” Cheatsheet!): https://www.healthykneescoach.com/save-your-knees-cheatsheet

Bellingham Training & Tennis Club (information about the Healthy Knees Strength & Cycle program): www.bttc.fit

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Transcript

Jen: 0:42

Welcome my Spoonie sisters. I'm your host, Gracefully, Jen, and I have a huge honor today. I have Robin Robertson here. She is a fellow supporter and advocate and she works with the arthritis foundation here in Washington State. Hi Robin, how are you today?

Robin: 1:03

Hello Jenny, thank you so much for having me here and I'm fantastic so glad to be here.

Jen: 1:10

I'm so excited to talk to you and about all the things that you've done with the arthritis foundation, healthy knees, your bike ride across America. I mean, there's so much fun stuff we get to talk about today.

Robin: 1:22

Well, I'm looking forward to sharing anything that can be helpful for your listeners, for sure.

Jen: 1:27

Absolutely so how about we start with a little bit of an introduction to you and who you are and why I brought you on here?

Robin: 1:35

Sure, I have a long and sordid story with osteoarthritis and it all started actually when I was born. I had a rare condition in my knees called Discoid meniscus, which meant that the meniscus cartilage, the cartilage between your, your big bones in your knee, was bigger than it should be and you think, okay, more cartilage, that's good. But actually it wasn't. In my left knee, on the lateral side, the outside, I had a lump in the cartilage. So when I was a kid that my knee would either roll over that lump and lock, and so I couldn't bend it, or it would get to the lump and not be able to get over it, and I would, my knee would collapse and I'd fall down. So I flopped around a lot as a child and doctors really didn't know I mean, this is pre MRI time so I had a procedure called the. Oh my gosh, I'm totally forgetting what the procedure was called.

Jen: 2:41

That's okay, it'll come to you.

Robin: 2:43

Anyway, I had a procedure where they could see the cartilage and then understand what the condition was. So, on top of multiple cortisone shots that I had to try to alleviate the pain because of my knee my left knee especially was very painful they figured out what was going on and recommended that I have a surgery. Now at that point it was not arthroscopic surgery, it was an open knee surgery and I was 13 years old. The doctor told my parents that removing the cartilage was the only option because they didn't have the tools back then to just trim out the bit that shouldn't be there. So the entire cartilage was removed on the lateral compartment of my knee and my doctor said that it may cause early arthritis. As a 13 year old I had no idea what that meant and my parents really didn't know what that meant. But if it helped me to alleviate pain immediately, they decided that that was going to be a good course. So I had that surgery and my doctor said to exercise as tolerated by pain.

Robin: 3:53

Now, as a 13 year old, I'm in middle school. What am I gonna do? I don't know. I had two older brothers and I needed to run away from them from time to time and I actually became a really good runner. So I ran competitively in high school. I took up downhill skiing. I loved the moguls. I ran competitively for Western Washington University. I was on the track and cross-country teams and my knee always hurt. I figured that it hurt less than it did before, and so that's what the doctor meant by exercise is tolerated by pain. I think I developed a very high tolerance to pain.

Robin: 4:33

Sounds like you did. Oh yeah, so I'm running. I really enjoying running. It was part of who I was and going into my senior season at Western Washington University it was so bad that I really needed to have another surgery.

Robin: 4:52

Now arthroscopic surgery was around so the doctor could go in and take a look inside my knee, see what was going on, and he told me afterwards that if he didn't know how old I was, he'd think I was 85 for the amount of arthritis I already had, and that if I wanted to walk when I was 30 years old, then I needed to stop all impact sports immediately.

Robin: 5:18

That's a pretty crushing blow when you see yourself as an athlete, as a runner, to know that your life is going to change, and it has to, because skiing had already become more painful than it was fun and I had stopped skiing a year or two before that and running was getting to that point too.

Robin: 5:39

So I'm not sure if I would have believed him if he hadn't shown me the videotape of the inside of my joint where he looked at the medial side, the inside, and it looked like you think it should if you think of a chicken bone, so if you think of a chicken leg and you look at the end of the bone and it has that nice kind of silky looking cover over the end of the bone. That's your articular cartilage, and then between the bones is the meniscus. On the medial side it looked great smooth, shiny, the way it should. Went over to the lateral side and it literally looked like somebody had taken a jackhammer to the joint. There were pock marks and bone spurs and I could see how much damage there was. So that changed my life, that moment, with that diagnosis, when I was just 24.

Jen: 6:32

Wow, I mean to be 24 and get that kind of news. How did you handle that?

Robin: 6:40

Well, I did stop running and that was a tough shift. What I found was really helpful was riding a bike and I found that riding a bike actually helps soothe some of the pain in my joint. And it was that decision to start riding a bike and stop running. I didn't do much hiking either because that was so painful, you know. And as the osteoarthritis progressed I became more and more knock-kneed on that side of my body because the lateral compartment was compressing, with no meniscus and the degeneration that was happening from the arthritis. When I was 34 years old. So I made it past 30, but when I was 34, I could hardly walk around the block and my kids were two and four years old. I was too young for a knee replacement. They simply would not do it then and I was starting to walk using crutches because of the pain. Then my doctor recommended doing a procedure called an osteotomy, where bone is taken out of my femur to realign my leg and make it straight so that the to reduce the pressure on the lateral side of the joint, to open that back up a little bit. So I had that done. It was three months, no weight bearing on crutches, with a two and a four year old.

Robin: 8:11

That was known as the dark days in our household, because it was pretty rough. Just to be able to function, we had to hire a nanny to come in, and thankfully my in-laws were able to do that for us, because we I wasn't working then and we needed to have the help. I couldn't carry a bowl of cereal to the table for my kids, I couldn't pick them up and hug them. So the osteoarthritis was about more than me. It was about how it affected my relationships with my husband, the things that we could and couldn't do, and especially with my kids. It was years later that my daughter said well, mom, our whole life was dictated by your needs and what we could and couldn't do. So when I was 34, I had this procedure, and it actually bought me some more time so that I could walk without pain. It took a full year of recovery after that surgery to realize the benefit from it.

Jen: 9:23

It was rough.

Robin: 9:24

It was a hard recovery and fast forward. I had a total of eight surgeries on that leg. At some point I think it was a year after I had the prognosis about the osteoarthritis, when I was 24, I had surgery on my right knee, which also had the discoid meniscus, but it didn't have a lump in it, and so what they were able to do was go in and trim out the bit of cartilage that shouldn't have been there. Unfortunately, with discoid meniscus, there are attachment problems with the meniscus to the bone, and my meniscus was a little more wiggly, jiggly, so with that one, it took me a year of rehab before I could walk without pain after that surgery. So, on the right knee, I spent a lot of time in a pool with a float between my knees. I couldn't even kick because it was painful, and I was able to build up enough muscle that it was supporting the joint better than it had been before. So a total of eight surgeries on my left knee, a total of four surgeries on my right knee. Finally, with replacements on both. My left knee was 2017 and my right knee 2019.

Robin: 10:45

So so many surgeries ultimately, with knee replacements, and I had to wait long enough that I was old enough. So I was 56 on my first replacement, with the idea that knee replacement will last 20 to 25 years. So I figured if I lasted 22 years that would get me to 78. Then I'd have another knee replacement and if it lasted 22 years that would get me to 100. And then I'd be dead. So I had to wait long enough that I could have two replacements and that was as far as I could push it. And I learned all of the things, all of the right things to do to support an osteoarthritic knee and all the things not to do along the way.

Jen: 12:32

So going back to being a mom, trying to be with your children and do all the normal mom things, that's heartbreaking as a mom. And I don't know about you, but I think I found that there were times where I would just kind of lay on the floor to play with them.

Robin: 12:53

Yes, absolutely Thinking of getting up and getting down or walking across the floor. Even sometimes there are times I'd sit at the top of our stairway and think I'm just going to butt scoot down the stairs because I don't want that pain on every step and just being able to. You know your kids. They've run at you and you want to pick them up and hold them. There were times that I couldn't do that and it was heartbreaking. And that's why I think I kept going with the surgeries was not only to relieve pain but to buy a little more time of a functioning knee so that I could be kind of more of a regular mom with my kids.

Jen: 13:39

So now that you've had all of these surgeries and knee replacements sorry about the frog in my throat and so has that helped you to kind of regain the mobility that you had before?

Robin: 13:57

Yeah, absolutely 100%.

Robin: 14:00

I was at unbelievably scared of having my knee replaced because I thought okay, I know, I know what I have now, but I'm not convinced that what I'll have in the future with a knee replacement is going to work better.

Robin: 14:14

Because you know, you read the stories about knee replacements or joint replacements that don't have great results. And through the process of coming to terms with having a replacement and I had to have a custom replacement because of the angle of my leg from that osteotomy surgery a regular off-the-shelf knee replacement wouldn't have worked for me because of the method they used to align the implants at your bones. So when custom joints finally became available, my doctor got trained in how to do them. I was his second patient for the custom knee joint and it worked beautifully and essentially the osteoarthritis is cut out of your joint. There's still some bone spurs that are in there above and below where the replacement parts are. But I have had little to no knee pain since I've had my knees replaced. I know that's not everyone's story, but the reasons for having that success are what led me to developing the Healthy Knees Coach program.

Jen: 15:35

So did they remove any of the bone spurs at all?

Robin: 15:38

Well, your knee isthe ends of your bones are really cut off for a knee replacement surgery, and they're cut at certain angles in order to fit the implants, and so the majority of the arthritic parts of the bones are cut away. The arthritis is gone. They put in a replacement meniscus in there. It's a plastic piece that goes in between the joints, and so there are some bone spurs above and below where the implants are seated onto the bones, but it isn't causing me problems at this point, which is fantastic.

Jen: 16:24

That is wonderful news. So has all of this only affected your knees? Are the rest of your joints okay? Well, no.

Robin: 16:34

I think for the years that my left leg was so noctinine, I had been putting more pressure on the ball of my foot and my big toe.

Robin: 16:45

So if you think of your whole body, your individual joint is not just about that joint, it is about the whole kinetic chain from your feet on up to your shoulders and your neck. And so with a noc knee there's more pressure on the inside of the foot, and so I just three weeks ago had surgery on my big toe joint because of arthritis there. So who knows what other ramifications I'll have from all of the years of suffering with the osteoarthritis, but the prognosis is good for my foot. I'm still in a boot right now. I can't put full pressure on my foot yet, but the bone spur that was causing the lack of mobility in my toe joint has been removed. A little bit of toe bone had to be taken out as well so I could get that 90 degree flexion back. But when you live with something for so long it's usually not going to be about that one thing in your complications that you may have down the road.

Jen: 17:48

That's a really good point. Okay, we're going to circle back a little bit. You brought up healthy knees, and so I really want you to explain to listeners what healthy knees coach is all about, and about your YouTube as well. Sure, yes.

Robin: 18:02

It must have been about a few years before I had my knee replaced. My surgeon, who actually did 10 of my 12 surgeries we like to joke that I put a couple of his kids through college he had said you know, robin, you would have had to have your knees replaced at least a decade ago If it weren't for all the strength training and the cycling that you do the bicycling. And it made me think aha, I actually know something about how to care for osteoarthritis in your knees, hips and feet by doing the right things. So that spurred me on to think I can actually help people with this with knee issues, with hip issues, with feet issues. And so I wrote my first book called Healthy Knees Cycling. And then I realized that isn't the whole story. People need to know about strength training as well. So I wrote Healthy Knees Strength. And then, as I went through the journey of replacing my knee a couple of years later, I wrote a book called Healthy Knees Total Knee Replacement. And so in all of those books are really all of the steps you can take to help your own situation.

Robin: 19:19

And while I was writing the books, I also want to manage the Bellingham Training and Tennis Club here in Bellingham, washington, and I have always taught a cycling course.

Robin: 19:30

That's more for the endurance cyclist. I thought I really needed to teach a course that was for people who were suffering from knee pain, and so I started the Healthy Knees Strength and Cycle class, where we have half an hour on a bike followed by half an hour of strength training. And then I had folks say, well, I'd love to do that, but I don't live in Bellingham. How can you help me? So that led to developing the Healthy Knees Coach program and I offer a 16-week program that's all online, with follow-along videos and the Healthy Knees for you YouTube channel with just about everything you can think of about knees. There are 40 some videos there, each on a different topic, and they're just out there waiting to help people. I get really wonderful comments from people saying they're so happy they found it. I addressed their very specific knee problem and it was just a breath of fresh air that they got this advice.

Jen: 20:36

I'm not gonna lie, I just pulled up the books to look at because I'd already pulled up your YouTube. But now I'm looking at the books and I love these covers. I don't know where you're sitting, but that looks amazing.

Robin: 20:48

Yeah, just down the street. We have a beach there. It's incredible.

Jen: 20:52

Oh, it looks incredible just by the photo. Okay, so I will make sure I add in links to the books, to the YouTube and, yeah, okay. So how long have you been doing all this?

Robin: 21:06

Really, it all started in 2015, two years before I had my first knee replacement, and it has been a joy to get to help people and work with people, especially in the live program that I do here. There are hundreds of people who've come through it. It's an eight week long course. We meet twice a week and it is so satisfying to have people say in the second or third week of the program, I already feel better. And for some people it's not even about their knees, it's about their back or they just don't know where to start to get healthy again because they're too afraid of movement, because they don't want to cause more pain, and knowing the right movement to do is the key and how to go about doing that movement. So I like I like to say that rest is rust and motion is lotion, whether it's just moving the joint or strength training in order to get stronger, to support your joints better.

Jen: 22:11

I love that, I really love those little quotes there. You know, I think so. My journey is a little different than yours. I have rheumatoid arthritis, but I, you know, I was 32 years old when I was diagnosed and I had this mindset that my life was over and I was never going to be able to do anything that I loved or enjoyed ever again.

Jen: 22:33

You know, one of my goals at that time had been I wanted to join a roller derby team and then, yeah, and then my knee pain started and, ironically, you know that we weren't really sure what was going on with me, because it was only my knee in the beginning and within a year it spread, you know, everywhere all my joints up and down shoulders, hands, feet, you name it. It was, it was going on, but I really did think my life was never going to be the same. But you can still adapt and strength training is so important and I wish that somebody would have told me back then how important it was to strengthen all those, you know, muscles and ligaments around my joints.

Robin: 23:17

Yes, absolutely 100%, and there were. There were times me too I sat on the couch and thought I don't even want to get up to go get a glass of water because of the pain. And this is it. This is going to be the rest of my life, and it doesn't. It doesn't have to be that way. You just have to find the right path, because there are always things that you can do. Even though you think it may not be right for you. You got to give it a try and see if it brings about the results that you want. And in you know, I refined the healthy knee strength and cycle program over all the years because we had more and more feedback about what was really working for people, and it's just so great to have folks say things like I was going to have my knee replaced, but now I feel so good I'm going to put it off for a while more, and just the sheer power of getting stronger and having more control is amazing.

Jen: 24:18

I could not agree with you anymore. So you've overcome so many challenges. You you've written books, you've got this wonderful YouTube to help people. You've got this coaching program to help people. Can you tell us about this bike ride across America, because this sounds amazing.

Robin: 24:37

Sure. So one of the things that I could always do, even with the advancing arthritis, was ride a bike, and the reason that biking is so good is that there's no foot strike impact. So think about when you're walking every time your foot strikes the pavement, that impact goes up through your body, and when you're walking in your knee joint, your body weight is multiplied five to six times in your knee joint, and so every step can bring pain, and especially if you're carrying more weight than is is healthy for your body. So bicycling has no impact. So you, your weight, is in your seat and not on your feet, so it's also no weight bearing, and for me, lateral movement was was something that was very painful. Any side to side stepping or movement, and bicycling is all straightforward. So knees are just going forward. There's no lateral movement, no weight bearing, no impact, and until the very, very end in 2017, I was always able to ride my bike because I could make that 110 degree flexion in your knee. That's what it takes when you're on an upright bike. So biking's been my go to, whether it's inside on a stationary bike or outside, and one of my dreams was to ride from Bellingham, washington.

Robin: 26:09

Originally, we were thinking Key West Florida corner to corner. That changed along the way because of some of the routing issues to get there. But both my husband and I both work still, so we couldn't take off three or four months to do this journey and we decided that once he left his 30 year law career and became a professor at Whatcom Community College, he had time off in the summer and the club was running well enough that I could leave as well. So we decided we could take three or four weeks and ride a section. So we started. Leg number one was Bellingham to Great Falls, montana. Leg number two was Jackson Hole, wyoming, to Rapid City, south Dakota. Leg number three was Sioux City, iowa, to Nashville, tennessee. And then we finished it last summer from Jacksonville no, louisville, sorry, louisville Kentucky, to Yorktown, virginia. And so instead of going all the way to the tip of Florida, we decided to catch the trans-American bicycle route and finish in Yorktown and dip our tires in the Atlantic. And it was fantastic.

Jen: 27:26

That sounds amazing and all the beauty you probably saw along the way that was it.

Robin: 27:32

It was a journey, a self-supported journey, so we were carrying all of our own gear, we camped, we sometimes stayed in hotels or hotels. We did our own cooking when we could because we wanted to be as free as we could, as we were traveling and being out in the elements is simply amazing, and you're on back roads primarily when you're on a bike, so you're not dealing with so many cars. Thankfully, we had no car issues. There were some close calls, but most people were kind and generous. Along the way, we met wonderful people, we saw amazing parts of the country and we got to do it together and that was really the best part. I got to do it with my best friend and husband.

Jen: 28:19

That's so cool. I feel like I would have my phone attached to my bike the entire time, recording videos, taking photos, because I'd never want to forget any of it.

Robin: 28:29

That was hard to not do that, but we did keep an online journal. So one of the things that we wanted to do was share the journey with people and raise some money. So we did the online journal, which is a lot. When you're on the road Sometimes there's no internet connection. Then you can't transmit easily or getting the pictures. But if anyone's interested in seeing our journey, we have a day-by-day journal with lots and lots of pictures.

Robin: 29:01

It's on the Healthy Knees Coach website under Ride C2C or Coast to Coast, and there's a link that'll take you to every day that we were on the road and there are some pretty funny stories, lots of great pictures, and so in support of that journal, I asked people to pledge a little bit of money to one of three charities. The local charity that we selected was the Wacom Community Foundation. The National Charity was the arthritis foundation, of course, and then the International Charity was World Bicycle Relief Fund, which brings bicycles to areas throughout Africa for kids to be able to buy, to work, women to be able to get to market, men to be able to get to market with goats on their bikes and health care workers to be able to visit more villages. So we raised over $10,000 for the three charities on our ride and we feel really good about that too.

Jen: 30:12

I love it. I love it so much, okay, so I just pulled that one up too. Yeah, all right. So what kind of bikes did you use? Did you use like a specific style of bike?

Robin: 30:23

Yeah, touring bikes which are heavier to start with. We both had Salsa Marrakesh bikes. 100% love those bikes. They're great, wide enough tires that you can ride off-road on gravel if need be and there were lots of sections of gravel on the way they're just super stable. They have the curled handlebars, like road bikes do, because that offers more different positions for your body while you're riding. The bikes themselves, with the racks, weighed about 35 pounds. The gear we kept to 40 pounds or less for our standard gear. But then when you add on water and food that we carried, we were pushing 80 to 85 pound bikes. So we didn't go anywhere fast, that's for sure. But with 12 knee surgeries it was 10 when I had started only 10 surgeries because I hadn't had my knee replacements yet I could still do that comfortably along the way, even though it was a very heavy bike, even though we went over thousands and thousands of feet of mountain passes. It was doable even without osteoarthritis.

Jen: 31:38

Wow. Well, you know fun fact I actually grew up in a bike riding family and we did road races and mountain bike races while I was growing up, love it, and so one of my favorite bikes I ever had was a green Cannondale and it was my baby. But you know, now I have a bike that my brother built for me. That is super special to me and I just had it worked on and fixed up a couple years ago. It has bright pink, fluorescent handlebars that I love. But actually during the summer, my husband has been bugging me about this forever. He decided to buy us some e-bikes, so he got us both an event in e-bike, because there's a lot of hills where I live, yes, and on a high pain day I need that assist.

Robin: 32:30

Absolutely yes.

Jen: 32:32

But there's so much fun and I can choose not to use the assist or I can choose to turn it up if I need to. I love the possibilities of it.

Robin: 32:41

Yeah, I figure whatever kind of bike you want, whether it's indoor, stationary bike or any kind of outdoor bike. As long as you are moving, that's a good thing, and the e-bikes are wonderful. I don't have one yet, but I absolutely love that. That's an option for folks just like you who have the assist there when you want it or need it.

Jen: 33:07

Yeah, I mean especially where we live. Like I said, it's very hilly here. I mean just leaving my neighborhood to get back to it. It's all hill, it's all hill. So if I'm having a hard day, I'm not gonna get back up that hill at all.

Robin: 33:24

Right, and that's not very inspiring, right, when you think this giant hill to go up at the end of the day. So having that assist is a beautiful thing.

Jen: 33:32

Yeah, exactly Okay. So we have covered so much, but I also want to ask so how did you get involved with the Arthritis Foundation as a?

Robin: 33:42

volunteer. Yeah, I was back in 2015. I was selected as the adult honoree as I was getting to know Lori McKnight, who runs the program here, and that just opened up the world of why I wanted to be involved with the arthritis foundation. I don't know how I hadn't made the connection before that, but I Was adult honoree and then, through our business, we've been a sponsor for the jingle ball run every year since then and I love being able to help Tell the story and help inspire people that there are things that you can do, even with us your arthritis that will help to soothe, help to stabilize and help to strengthen your knees, hips and ankles so that you have that confidence to go out and Get back to doing the things that you love, or maybe even Shift to some new activities and find new things that you love.

Robin: 34:44

There is always a path and you sometimes just have to try a few different things in order to find the right one for you, but I love being able to help the arthritis foundation and the more that we can raise money, the more likelihood Cure will be around. There's over 400 types of arthritis, and so it's not just osteo or rheumatoid, but all the things in between. We really want to make a difference in people's lives.

Jen: 35:13

Well, I just pulled up the dates. So for those that are here in Washington State, you can go do the jingle bell run in Bellingham on December 9th, and on December 10th you can hit the Seattle one. How early in the day does it start?

Robin: 35:28

the race itself Race, walk or run starts at 9 o'clock, but there are other activities that start earlier, with costume contests. I think there's a dog costume contest, there's a kid's route that starts earlier, so, and there's a one mile route as well. You don't have to walk or run the whole 5k. There have been times I've been on crutches and I've walked the one mile route. I've been pushed in a wheelchair when it was right after a knee replacement surgery. So there are many, many ways to participate and you don't have to do the walk or run at all. You can stay home and jingle in your jammies. So if anyone is looking for a team, I'm always wanting to have a great big team. It's called Robin's reindeer and you're invited to join, put your antlers on and Jingle at home or jingle with us throughout the year or during the event.

Jen: 36:26

Well, count me in. I'll join your team and cheer you on. I don't have one local to me. I hear they used to do one in Portland, which would be the closest to me. Hopefully they'll get doing that again, or even one in Vancouver that's even closer to me. I would rather it be in Vancouver, just because it's closer and I know it a little better.

Robin: 36:46

Absolutely. Well. You can even, on the day, just go out and do a 5k walk With some friends. Yeah, jingle your own way. That's a fun thing to do too. Yeah.

Jen: 36:56

Well, I'm excited to cheer you guys on and and support however I can Wow. I mean, is there anything we haven't covered that you think we should bring up?

Robin: 37:07

Well, let's see. I have a couple things that'll be coming up with. Healthy knees coach. I'll be doing some free online workshops and I don't have the dates yet for those. I'll be in January February Our in-person program in Bellingham if you live in the area will start the first week of January.

Robin: 37:33

It runs for eight weeks. We'll run a couple of those courses Throughout the winter and spring, so that's a good one to join in if you're local. But the online course, I'm going to do a group launch. It's available Now to join anytime so you can start it at will, but in the end of February I'm doing a group launch because I want to add in some coaching with that. I want to be there every week for people to help along the way, because I find Accountability is huge in the program.

Robin: 38:08

Everyone starts out gung-ho and what I see is when in the on your own, do it yourself program, some people finish and that's fantastic. Many people taper off because I I feel like they're not seeing immediate results and you're not going to have immediate results. Changing your body takes time and that's why this course is 16 weeks long. If you complete even just eight weeks, you will see some huge changes If you complete the course for the 16 weeks, you're gonna look back and wonder what you were even worried about in the beginning, because your pain will be so much less. You'll feel so much stronger and so confident that I give a money back guarantee in the courses, because I know if you do the work that is the key. You have to do the work you will feel better and I feel so good about helping people along that journey.

Robin: 39:06

So those couple of things are coming up with the free workshop, online, free workshop here at the club on December 16th at noon. If you want to find out about when those online workshops are, just sign up for the healthy knees newsletter. So if you go to the healthy knees coach comm website, scroll down the page, you'll see a picture of me and the sign up for healthy knees. Or if you scroll a little bit farther, you'll see I get the save your knees cheat sheets and so when you sign up to get that cheat sheet You'll also be entered into our newsletter email list and I can let you know when those workshops are.

Jen: 39:46

Okay, so is that the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Robin: 39:50

Yeah, absolutely. Or you can just email me, robin at healthy knees coach comm, and I love to be able to answer any quick questions for you or let you know how any of the programs that I offer might be able to help. If you're a do-it-yourselfer, the books are a great way to do it too. They're not very expensive and they're a quick read, but it has all the ingredients that you need to have some success with your knees well, I love it and I I thank you for for giving us your time today.

Jen: 40:22

And, gosh, guys, if you need her, reach out to her, and if you don't reach out to her, anyway.

Robin: 40:29

There's always preemptive knee work. You know, one of the things I like to say is, even if you are headed toward surgery, when you do the strength training and the mobility training, you'll go into that surgery so much stronger that your recovery will be so much better and faster. By getting stronger first, doing the work, reducing some of your pain, and you'll set yourself up for better results in the end. So I look forward to helping anyone who reaches out to me, and it's just been such a pleasure to get to talk with you, jenny. I really appreciate it.

Jen: 41:03

Thank you. It was such an honor to have you on here and I didn't can't wait to share your story. So All right guys, thanks for joining and until next time don't forget your spoon. You.